Jimmy Corby graduated from Sussex in 1993 with five friends: Robbo, David, Rupert, Henry and Lizzie. They were to remain friends throughout the 90s and most of the noughties. Mates. Proper mates. Through good and bad sentences. Except there were no good sentences.

Jimmy was tired. Really tired. Dog tired. Tired as a very tired person. How was he going to provide for Monica and the kids? Eighteen months earlier the stairs had twinkled like diamonds. "Rupert's just saved me a fortune," he had said to Monica. "Tipped me off that Caledonian Granite is going belly up." "Haven't you got a more imaginative alternative for Northern Rock?" Monica had replied. "Apparently not." "Well it sounds like insider dealing, and as I am the book's voice of morality, I think you should give it all to charity." "Tell you what, babe," he had laughed, "I'll put it all on the gee-gees."

Henry blew-dry his blond curls. He needed to make a good impression now he was a junior minister. "Maybe I can claim the hairdryer on expenses," he thought. "Is the whole book going to be this telegraphed?" his wife Jane groaned. "It's by Ben Elton," he snapped.

"Mwa-ha-ha-ha," Rupert cackled, in the manner of the archetypal villain. "Everyone else is broke but I'm fine, thanks to my Fred the Shred pension and my Tony Blair knighthood."

Even Monica was astonished by the banality of both the insight into the banking crisis and the characterisation, but she wasn't going to miss out on her own cliches. "Everyone has been very greedy and naughty," she observed.

"Oh, Mon," Jimmy wept. "You are so right, and I regret not saving sensibly while I was making a fortune as a banker. Now I'm out of a job, it's very hard to keep up the mortgage on our huge house in Notting Hill, and my property investment has gone belly- up. We might have to take Toby out of private school."

"Hang on," Monica said, "luckily Lizzie has agreed to lend us £2m."

"Robbo and I have always been careful with money and put all our savings into premium bonds," Lizzie said. "And our luxury cushion shop is still making millions." "Hooray. We're saved," Monica and Jimmy smiled.

"Oh dear," Lizzie wept. "Robbo has just killed himself by driving into a wall and it turns out he inexplicably invested all our money with a character who resembles Bernie Madoff, so now we're broke too! Though obviously there was no connection between him crashing the car and our being broke, because that would be morally complex."

"That's awful," said Jimmy. "Toby will have to leave private school after all."

"Don't worry," Toby replied. "Some state schools are awfully good, and I will do good works by befriending the son of a Somali asylum seeker."

"You know," said Monica, who never missed an opportunity to be annoyingly sanctimonious. "I can't help feeling that we lost our moral compass while we were making all that money."

"At least we didn't resort to writing We Will Rock You," Jimmy replied.

"Fancy that," said Henry. "The expenses scandal has broken and I've had to resign my seat."

"Fancy that," said Rupert. "Everyone hates me, I'm being investigated for insider trading and I've had to leave the country."

"No I didn't," yelled Jimmy, appearing from nowhere. "That was some crap arson subplot to make you think the book was more interesting than it is. I've decided to be a plumber."

"My man of the people," Monica drooled, the only person apart from Jimmy who had failed to notice bankers were now paying themselves huge bonuses again. "And the bet I made two years ago has won me £5tn. But I'm giving it to charity. Which is more than Ben will do with the proceeds of this trash."